


Gone

by Beanieha



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is mentioned, Death, Galra Keith, Klanceweek2k16, M/M, My goal was to make YOU cry, Sad lance, day 3: heaven/hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7693372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beanieha/pseuds/Beanieha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith's Galra genes start showing, and Lance tries to deal with it. There's also some crying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

Day 3 (6th): Hell/Heaven

 

It was quiet in the room, too quiet. The only noises that could be heard through the silence were the painful wheezes coming from the bunk bed. Gasps were fired as one of the inhabitants of the steel framed mattress writhed in pain, causing the other to wrap his arms around the hurting male in a careful, yet firm embrace. Cradling the shorter boy in his arms, Lance looked down onto the face he had come to love so dearly. Concern for the other had already worked lines into the face of the paladin, causing wrinkles of worry and distress to replace those of happiness and warmth.

Tightening the blankets around Keith's aching body, Lance's heart couldn't help but cry, his eyes still tracking the face of his partner. Tears rose to the surface as he gently placed his knuckles on the others cheek, stroking the once pale skin which had now become marked with big blotches of purple fur. 

Letting his mind wander, Lance remembered the fight against the Galra which had taken place just a few altean weeks ago. They had fought the "Evil Furry Fleet" relentlessly, only stepping back when the enemy was weakened to the point of capitulation. On behalf of Allura and Coran, the paladins had let the remaining galrans return to their home planet, as the last alteans refused to make another species go through the same genocide that they had woken up to.

After the biggest winning-hype was over, Lance had noticed a change of air in Keith. The mullet wearing man spent most the day asleep in his room, only coming out for food and sometimes training. At first, the other paladins wrote this off as understandable, since the year long fight against the Galra Empire had taken its toll on them all, but when Keith stopped leaving his quarters altogether, the rest of the team felt that there might be more to it than just tiredness and stress. 

After storming into the red paladin's room and finding their teammate seemingly lifeless on his bed, they had finally understood the seriousness of the situation.

"Lance?" Allura had said when she'd returned to Keith's room after examining the tests and scans that had been taken on the red paladin.  
The man next to the bed startled, turning his face towards the altean princess.

"Can I have a word with you in the corridor?"

Slowly Lance rose, hesitant to let go of the hand he had been holding in a firm grip. Gently laying the hand next to the others body, he he'd bent down and pressed a soft peck to the unconscious males forehead before following the princess out of the room.

Waiting for Allura to speak, he fidgeted with his sleeves, sending distressed glances towards the closed bedroom door.

"Lance," she started, with a heavy sigh, "Keith's condition is incurable." 

The words caused the paladin's worried eyes to lock onto the princess's face.

"Wait, what do you mean incurable? What condition?" The worry and confusion was heavy in his voice.

"Well, technically it's not a condition. It's just a part of his dna that seems to have been triggered by something during the last battle against the Galra."

"W-what do y-"

Allura stepped forward, gripping Lances shoulders to steady him.

"Lance, a part of Keith's gene pool has appeared to be galran. Keith is part Galra, and during this last battle, something triggered that part of his dna." The princess looked firmly into Lances eyes, as if trying to push strength into him.

"What does this m-mean? What's going to happen to him?" Lances lips were quivering, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Keith is going to change. I'm not yet sure to which extent he will change, but that's not the worst part of it." Allura wore a saddened expression as she gave the finishing blow.

"Lance, I need you to be prepared for that he might not stay with us for much longer."

"What, are we s-sending him away?" Lance knew he was acting in denial, but a small part of him hoped that they were just going to send him off somewhere to fix all of this, to fix the changes going on in his lovers body.

"Oh Lance." Allura chocked out, embracing the shivering paladin. This was it, Lance felt, this was the end. The answer Allura had given him was more than enough to confirm his earlier suspicions, and fat tears rolled down his cheeks as his heart was torn to pieces.

Hearing a groan next to him, Lance was brought back to the present. He fixed his eyes on the blind, yellow orbs that had replaced the once vibrantly grey-purple of his eyes; the eyes that had made Lance fall even harder each time he looked into them, every rare time that they would light up with pure joy. 

The blue paladin tightened his grip on the other as he threaded his fingers through the almost completely dark purple hair of his former rival, remembering how the dark color it had before had complimented Keith's formerly fair skin, giving the boy an almost ethereal look. He remembered all the times he had mocked the others mullet, even though he had always secretly loved the extra long hair at the back of Keith's neck. Tracing his eyes down to Keith's mouth, Lance felt his heart clench.

It had been three weeks since the last time Keith had spoken in full words.

Nowadays, Keith's communication consisted of blindly reaching for things, or pressing out broken words, only understandable if one took the time to really listen and decipher what the messed up consonants could possibly mean.

Lance remembered how he had first freaked out when the purple spots started appearing on his boyfriend body, how he had gone through another breakdown, just like at the beginning of this hellish nightmare. 

He had been alone with Keith in the formers room, cuddling on the bed when he had seen the purple that had marked the back of the red paladin's hand. Keith had tried to talk him trough the hyperventilating, but the raspiness of his voice had only served to make Lance even more stressed. After being slapped across his face by an upset Keith multiple times, Lance had calmed down, clinging onto Keith like a koala.

"Ggrlgt." Lance lifted Keith's torso, so that the male was in an upright position.

"Whatcha saying, buddy?" he spoke to the other, trying to make his voice as positive as possible.

"Kgghrqt." The blinded man reached his hands forward, in a futile attempt to find Lance's face. Supporting the man with his left arm tightly wound around the blanket enveloped back, Lance brought the males hands up to his mouth, pressing soft kisses onto the small patches of human skin. These small patches were what kept Lance going. These small, barely there patches were what made him hope for another day, another hour even, that Keith would still be by his side.

He could tell that there wasn't much time left.

Deciding that it was now bedtime, Lance lifted the blanketed man up from the bed, seating the skinny creature on his hip as he opened up the bed. He gently placed the other furthest in on the mattress, next to the wall so that he wouldn't roll out of bed sometime during the night. As Lance changed into his sleepwear, he couldn't help but feel guilty. Although Keith was rapidly wasting away, Lance couldn't stop himself from enjoying the ability to carry the other around, something he wasn't able to do back when Keith was healthy.

Shaking his head to rid himself of the thoughts, the blue paladin returned to the bed, laying down next to the shivering male. With the weight loss had come the feeling of always being cold, and Keith was seldom seen wearing less than two blankets at a time.  
Lance laid on his side, facing his partner.

Watching as Keith stared blindly to the ceiling, he placed his arm carefully across the others rib cage, nuzzling into the purple fur.

"Try to get some sleep, ok?" he whispered against the others skin, taking the low "hrrgfgr" as a yes.  
Soon enough the room was enveloped in silence once again.

_______________

 

Noises rousing him from his sleep, Lance sat up and looked to the clock on the bedside table. The altean figures lit up to show him that he'd only been out for a few hours.

"Hghrrrlc-rhccth..." The purple boy beside him twisted slightly in his nest of blankets, looking almost like some kind of fluffy, purple headed worm with a floral print body.

"Keith?" He leaned towards the other male, aiming to reaching forward to caress the fur blotches on his face, but as soon as he made contact with the purple patches his partner let out a pained groan.  
"Hnngggc-cccccgh-ccchhggr-"

"Keith? Hey, what's wrong?!" Lance felt panic rise in his chest, moving his hands forward yet again to feel the other mans face. As his palms met the face which held few remnants of what it use to be, Lance stopped, dead in his tracks.

Keith was cold as ice.

"No." He grabbed hold of the shared comforter and proceeded to wrap it around the passive male lying next to him, all the while chanting a one worded rhyme.

"No. No, no, no. Come on Keith, don't do this to me babe." His words might've seemed insensitive if one were to just read them, but to one who was in the same room the stress and helplessness could be heard loud and clear, like a wrecking ball breaking through a wall of silence.

Lance felt himself entering panic mode, felt his blood pump loudly in his ears. His breathing consisted of fast, shallow intakes of air, as if there was no oxygen left in the room. Forcing himself to keep it together, Lance's mind returned to the unmoving man before him, leaning forward to touch the cold cheeks again.

'Okay, think, Lance, think!' He frantically sought through his mind to find anything, anything at all, that could possibly help make the situation a little better.

"Chhhh-cc-ghrr..." Keith choked out, making Lance pull the brakes on his train of thought.

"Keith?"

"Ccrfrrrrr..." Keith's breathing was ragged, choking on the air as it entered his broken lungs.

"Keith, Keith, come on man. Don't-don't leave me like this! Please, I can't-" Lance's words were pressed out in between wet sobs, tears making their way down his cheeks as he moved to cradle the other man in his arms, gently stroking the purple hair.

Keith's body convulsed, shaking as his lungs struggled to breathe.

"K-Keith..." Lance bent down to bury his face in Keith's neck, wetting the short, purple fur with his tears.

"Hh-hhh..." The deformed body beneath the layers of blankets took a long, everlasting breath, during which Lance looked up from Keith's wet neck, hope glimmering in his eyes only to be crushed as the red paladin's lungs pushed the air out, the last of it coming out in harsh puffs.

Lance watched, still hoping for something to change, as the body before him stopped moving, as the mechanisms inside of it went out after weeks of tearing themselves apart. He watched as Keith's blind eyes, still open, lost their shine.

"N-no, no, NO, KEITH, KEITH!" Lance hugged the lifeless body of his lover, clinging to the corpse, shivering as loud cries shook his body. Keith... Keith was gone. 

Keith, the man he had hated. 

Keith, the man he had shared so many fights with. 

Keith, the man which he had been in rivalry with. 

Keith, the man who had changed Lance's life.

Keith, the man who had grown to love Lance.

Keith, the man who Lance had grown to love back.

Keith.

Keith was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> So now I know this might not seem to have anything to do with the prompts for today, but i was thinking that Lance feels like he's in hell after Keith leaves him.


End file.
